


My ex-lover, who flew to the stars and back

by deplore



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deplore/pseuds/deplore
Summary: Side 1:Felix replies, “Alright – so should we try being together again?”Then he touches the crown of his watch again. He doesn’t press it back in. There it remains, strangely decapitated, serving no purpose; it feels like an unfortunate metaphor that Dimitri can’t quite complete in his mind. But Dimitri is sure that Felix means nothing in particular – it’s simply a peculiar habit of his, because Felix’s hands resist indolence and Felix’s heart craves attachment. Thus he wears a broken watch that once belonged to his brother.Side 2:“Alright,” Felix says. “So… should we try being together again?”When Dimitri is silent, it isn’t just that he doesn’t speak. Everything about him becomes gently shrouded in an inscrutable stillness, as if he has stepped into a little world of his own, where the atmosphere does not allow unfamiliar light from outside. Felix feels the same way watching Dimitri as he does whenever he looks off to the horizon and notices faraway clouds that might turn into a thunderstorm or a gentle rain or fade off into nothing at all. There is beauty. There is also a tense anticipation that borders upon but is not quite fear.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54





	My ex-lover, who flew to the stars and back

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [my Dreamwidth](https://deplore.dreamwidth.org/), but after a few weeks I still liked it enough to post it to AO3 after all (and discovered AO3 supports tables haha). My apologies to readers on mobile - the formatting probably looks terrible on smaller screens. Please read on a larger screen if possible.

| Felix’s heart thuds loudly in his ribcage. He remembers a time when he would wonder if Dimitri was politely pretending not to hear the sound of Felix’s heart beating, because it struck Felix as strangely inconceivable that Dimitri heard nothing at all. It is terribly tempting fall into old ways of thinking. But Felix takes a breath and decides that he has to trust in what he knows about his own physiology.  
---|---  
  
“So,” Felix says bracingly, “should we try it again?”

Dimitri knows what he means. Still, he is compelled to reply, “Try what?”

Felix sighs. Then he reaches with his right hand to his other wrist and begins to play with the crown of his watch – pulling it out, pushing it back in, repeat. It is what Dimitri would consider a bad habit, but one that is ultimately inconsequential because the watch has been broken for years now. Stopping and starting it has no effect at all: it remains stuck at the same time indefinitely.

| 

“So should we try it again?” Felix asks. He chooses his phrasing delicately, to carefully walk around what he really means to say. Felix isn’t avoiding the point: he’s preparing himself to get there.

“Try what?” Dimitri replies.

Felix breathes in. The fact that he is the one who opened this conversation up means that he must be prepared to take responsibility for it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to lead them to where they both want or need to be.  
  
“You want me to say it in so many words?” Felix finally replies.

“Well,” Dimitri says. Then a pause.

Felix glances at him just long enough to let the weight of his gaze settle on Dimitri’s back before he goes back to staring off to the side, at nothing in particular. Dimitri thinks Felix looks beautiful in a way that scares Dimitri a little – beautiful in the same way a bud is before it blooms, the same way a cocoon is before emergence – like Felix might violently metamorphosize into somebody else. A Felix with no sentiment for Dimitri remaining at all, perhaps.

Dimitri could bear Felix’s hate, but not his apathy.

“Yes,” Dimitri says.

| 

“You want me to say it in so many words?” Felix asks.

Dimitri hesitates visibly; when he does, Felix is tempted to believe that Dimitri is wearing the face of a completely different person. He has to remind himself that there is nobody except Dimitri before him.

“Well,” Dimitri replies slowly – Felix glances up at him but almost immediately looks away. Instead of trying to read Dimitri’s expression, Felix looks down at his watch. The time on it never changes; that constant is reassuring. No matter what else happens around him, when Felix checks his watch, it is perpetually twelve minutes past two.

Finally, Dimitri says: “Yes.”

It is the answer that Felix expected. Even still, his heart does not stop racing.

“Fine. Alright,” Felix says.

He permits him a moment to gather himself.  
  
Felix ceases his fiddling. “Fine,” he replies. “Alright. Alright – so should we try being together again?”

Then Felix touches the crown of his watch again. He doesn’t press it back in. There it remains, strangely decapitated, serving no purpose; it feels like an unfortunate metaphor that Dimitri can’t quite complete in his mind. But Dimitri is sure that Felix means nothing in particular – it’s simply a peculiar habit of his, because Felix’s hands resist indolence and Felix’s heart craves attachment. Thus he wears a broken watch that once belonged to his brother.

If Dimitri gave Felix a new watch, he does not think that Felix would wear it. That is the kind of cruelty that Felix is capable of. Dimitri doesn’t mind it for what it is, because it is compatible with his own capacity to be cruel.

So it would be easier to yearn for Felix’s love than to accept it in many ways. There is comfort in the unattainable – if he chooses to believe that Felix will not love him, or that nothing will come of loving and being loved by Felix, then Dimitri’s heart is free to dream a lovely fantasy without the chains of expectations binding him to what he knows to be true. This permits Dimitri the clever doublethink of imagining away all the little incompatibilities between them without realizing that Felix without any brutal sharpness inherent would not be Felix anymore.

And, of course, there’s the most damning fact of them all: that it didn’t work out the first time.

| 

“Alright,” Felix says again. “So… should we try being together again?”

When Dimitri is silent, it isn’t just that he doesn’t speak. Everything about him becomes gently shrouded in an inscrutable stillness, as if he has stepped into a little world of his own, where the atmosphere does not allow unfamiliar light from outside. Felix feels the same way watching Dimitri as he does whenever he looks off to the horizon and notices faraway clouds that might turn into a thunderstorm or a gentle rain or fade off into nothing at all. There is beauty. There is also a tense anticipation that borders upon but is not quite fear.

Felix touches his watch with his right hand. His fingertips brush past the window, but he forces himself not to check it, because he knows it’ll be two-twelve. It always is and it always will be; his left hand is willingly bound to that broken moment. On his other hand – life moves forward. The seconds tick away, cycles begin and end, people grow and change.

The longer that Felix has known Dimitri, the more he feels that he can intuit what’s in Dimitri’s heart and the less he can see the nature of Dimitri’s intent. Sometimes he wonders if they should have met later in their lives; perhaps they were too close too soon. Felix realizes now that he wanted Dimitri to understand him before Felix even understood himself.

Felix takes the smallest step back, as if to see Dimitri from a better vantage point.  
  
“Say something,” Felix murmurs.

“You know I’ve always loved you,” Dimitri replies.

It isn’t an answer to Felix’s question. But it is something he needs to say – not for Felix to hear, but for himself.

Dimitri knows they’re better made to be friends than lovers, yet still when he thinks of who he’d want to be with when he wants somebody’s lips to kiss away his fear, the shape and color of Felix’s mouth comes to mind.

| 

“Say something,” he says quietly.

The stillness breaks. Something soft and tentative surfaces in the ambiance about Dimitri. He replies, “You know I’ve always loved you.”

Felix can’t deny it. But the problem has never been whether love between them exists or doesn’t. It’s that emotions are measured by intensity and not distance. _You love me from too far away,_ he once said, not realizing that he was having a conversation with the Dimitri in his mind instead of the person in front of him.  
  
“But love isn’t enough,” Dimitri then says.

“I know,” Felix replies immediately.

He knows. Yes – of course Felix knows how it is to have your lover’s body in front of you and his mind on the other side of the moon.

Dimitri knows too: the waves, high tide, and drowning in a gravitational pull that meager masses like a single human cannot resist.

And still Felix asked.

| 

“But love isn’t enough,” Dimitri says.

Words form in Felix’s mouth before Dimitri has even finished speaking: “I know,” he replies.

Dimitri smiles. He reaches out and takes Felix’s hand. Something about the pressure and grip of their fingers interlacing feels just right. Felix holds his breath and waits.  
  
“I’ll try harder this time,” Dimitri says. He reaches out and takes Felix’s hand gently into his own. Someday he would like it if their thoughts could intertwine as easily as do their fingers. He understands the mild anatomy of the intimate touch well, but the delicate enfolding of a soft and compassionate intent is not in his nature. “So – yes. Let’s try again. Together this time.”

Felix sighs.

| 

“I’ll try harder this time,” Dimitri says, “so yes… let’s try again. Together this time.”

Felix exhales. And then he relinquishes himself to the possibilities of something more.  
  
Then he smiles. Within Dimitri, something yet unformed begins to spin itself into a chrysalis to discover its proper shape.

|   
  
“Once you offer to have his watch fixed,” Felix says. “I understand now why it upset me.” Dimitri waits as Felix gathers his thoughts. Neither of them count the seconds. They both know it’s important to take all the time that they need to find the right words, the right pace, the right mindset. “To you, it was a broken watch. But to me, it was a reminder. In truth – it’s both,” Felix finally continues. When Felix says it, Dimitri also understands. “Something was broken, yet not,” Dimitri says. So as they are: unbroken, yet not.  
---


End file.
